Lunde's Cajun-Norwegian Fusion

You heard it here first. Cajun-Norwegian Fusion. It's a movement.

It is probably true that few Norwegians ever settled in the squishy part of southern Louisiana. The heat, humidity, gnats, gators, binge-drinking and non-stop sex would be too harsh for Norsemen (this is why they took over Minnesota instead). But I can tell you that  Lunde's Norwegian apple pie sits just right with their excellent shrimp ettouffee. I think they may be onto something.

Yesterday Shadow Pup, The Younger, Tojo Yamamoto, Big Easy Slim, BoDiddly, Chase N. Allpots, The Great Grantini, Cornbread Carp and I strolled over to one of our favorites -- Lunde's on Montgomery Street.

We've always pronounced it American-style like "Lundy's" and since the joint serves up reliably tasty cajun/creole type dishes, we erroneously thought the name was some kind of play on "Lundi," which is French for "Monday," which is pronounced "Mundy" here in the Gump. Shortly after being seated, however, our preconceived notions began to crumble.

The trouble started when Big Easy Slim, a native of New Orleans and LITG's expert on all things Louisianian, advised us to save room for the Norwegian apple pie. "Huh?" I said, "Norwegian desserts in a Cajun joint? What the hell is up with that?" Turns out the co-owner/chef at Lunde's is a Norwegian guy named "Lunde." I googled it on my phone gadget and found out that "Lunde" is Norwegian for "Jones."

"It's probably pronounced 'Loond' or something," sniffed Allpots, the elitist snob. "Apparently we shall now have to call this place Loond's."

About this time co-owner Karen mistakenly put Allpots' salad in front of Tojo, who never orders salad, but ate it anyway, sans dressing, just to watch Allpots squeal like the overindulged Irish brat that he most assuredly is.

Apparently Karen has some bayou country in her DNA because she shared grandmother's take on the origin of the word "jambalaya." It is an interesting story (click on the picture below) but conflicts with the etymology foisted on me as a youngster, which is that the loose translation of "jambalaya" is "Warden, I'll have me some of that stuff there for my last meal before y'all shave my head and put the juice to me." You live and learn.

As usual, I digress. Back to the lunch.

The gumpers went with a variety of dishes and nobody was disappointed (except Allpots, who had his lip poked out until somebody brought him a salad). We had shrimp ettouffee, red beans & rice, jambalaya, blackened shrimp, grilled pork loin... plus some other stuff I can't remember or spell correctly. You can also get a mean meat & 3 at Lunde's (see below). Cornbread Carp approved of the cornbread and noted, for the record, that Lunde's serves real butter and that the cornbread is served hot enough to quickly melt said real butter.

Shadow Pup asked his pal, "How's that ettouffee, Tojo?"

"Tojo like." came the reply. That is Tojo's highest rating.

How to top off a great Cajun lunch? Well, how about some of B.E. Slim's favorite Norwegian pie? It was sort of a cross between a pie and a cake, served fresh out of the oven with vanilla ice cream on top (which sort of Americanized it). We jumped on that foreign pie like it was Liv Ullman back in the day, gobbling that stuff up so fast nobody remembered to take a picture, but I found this one on the web, which pretty much shows what Norwegian apple pie looks like.

Anyway, Lunde's is a real good lunch place, even if we don't really know how to pronounce it, and I think this Norwegian/Cajun thing is going to catch on.

I'm outta here. Have a good weekend. See y'all Munde.


Random Lunch in the Gump picture of the week:

BoDiddly snapped this one at the grocery store the other day.

Publix has everything.